The Braves said they were going to use Sunday’s win in St. Louis to build a little momentum, and they kept their word.

They worked an unusually wild Wily Peralta for a three-run lead in the first three innings, chased him after five innings, and then finished off the Brewers’ bullpen with a five-run eighth to take the first game of this series 9-3 against the first-place team from the NL Central.

“I thought yesterday’s game might be of those turn-you-over (games),” said Braves manager Fredi Gonzalez, who reiterated that in Monday’s scouting meeting before the Braves played the Brewers. “Sometimes you think a win is a win, but yesterday the way we won that game, it might be the biggest win we’ve had all year. We’ll see. Hopefully it’ll carry us over for a long time.”

The Braves built a 3-0 lead with some help from Freddie Freeman’s second home run in as many days, and they broke it open with home runs from Ryan Doumit– the 100th of his career – and Justin Upton in the eighth.

By the time the eighth-inning onslaught was over, the Braves had batted around, so that the pinch-hitting Doumit batted twice in the inning. And the second time, he was facing the Brewers utility player Lyle Overbay, a former Brave, who took the mound for his first career appearance as a pitcher.

Overbay got Doumit to pop-out to shortstop, which was more than Weu-Chung Wang could say, after allowing five runs including two homers on 40 pitches.

“Kid’s got nasty stuff,” said Doumit, with a twinkle in his eye, talking about Overbay, his 37-year-old former Pirates teammate and fellow native of Washington state. “The kid, he’s got a bright future ahead of him. I’m going to keep my eye on him.”

The Braves piled on a season-high 15 hits, including three each from Andrelton Simmons and leadoff hitter Jason Heyward, who also stole two bases and scored two runs. The Braves scored six or more runs for two straight games for the first time since they won four in a row with some steady offense against the Nationals and Phillies April 11-14.

“It’s nice to finally show everybody what we’re capable of,” Doumit said. “We have too much firepower in this lineup to be quiet the last week or so. I think we’re seeing signs of guys breaking out. Today was a pretty telling sign, guys using the whole field. I think there’s more of that to come.”